The present invention relates to a golf ball composed of a core, an intermediate layer and a cover that have been formed as successive layers. More specifically, the invention relates to a golf ball which has a good flight performance, a good durability to cracking and a good scuff resistance.
A variety of golf balls have hitherto been developed. Of these, three-piece solid golf balls having an optimized hardness relationship between an intermediate layer and a cover layer which encase the core are in wide use. In recent years, important elements in assessing ball performance include not only the flight performance, but also the durability of the ball to cracking and the scuff resistance—which is the ability to suppress burr formation on the ball surface. Designing the thickness, hardness and other properties of the respective ball layers in such a way as to maximize these desirable effects is another major challenge. Also, with regard to the use of golf balls, in addition to professionals and other skilled golfers, use by amateur golfers having a relatively low head speed is common. Hence, there exists a desire for the development of golf balls which, even when used by amateur golfers, enable a sufficient distance to be achieved.
Three-piece solid golf balls in which properties such as the thickness or hardness of the respective layers have been designed are disclosed in, for example, JP-A 2001-95947, JP-A 2001-218873, JP-A 2001-218875, JP-A 2005-211656 and JP-A 2007-167257.
However, these three-piece solid golf balls leave something to be desired in achieving a low spin rate on shots with a driver, and moreover do not always have sufficiently good ball properties such as durability to cracking and scuff resistance.